“Your highness, when I said that you are like a stream of bat's piss, I only mean that you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around it is dark"

Hear ye! Hear ye! Good morrow strapping gentlemen! Stef and KP straighten their nerd caps, lace up thine olde (and stinking!) tights, and make haste for the annual Reniassance Festival in odious Holly Michigan. And it was Armed Forces day. And Biker day...didn’t see one soldier. Or biker.

Hath ye lain eyes on this creepy nerd shit? I didn’t even feel comfortable laughing because they were so for real. I choked down more giggles than the cast of High School Musical chokes down…nevermind. I’m just really glad we brought beer.

I feel like I should clarify a minute, we had an experienced escort. We didn’t just up and decide to go do this, and while KP might be a nerd, she isn’t even CLOSE to this magnitude. We knew a guy who could get us in. After a long night of no way!’s and nuh-uh’s in response to Austin telling me what actually goes on in one of these things, it was decided that in the spirit of adventure we make a day of it. Austin at 10am: we’re bringing beer. Driving up to the entrance of the fair, Austin had to comment to all in the backseat "Act like you belong here and don't laugh" which was promptly followed by me and Trotter giggling uncontrollably at the guy dressed like Merlin walking around the parking lot. We drag our sorry asses out of the car and head straight to the fair, we walk in and KP immediately goes "I need a beer right now".

And how glad I was that we did. Here’s the deal with the Holly Renaissance Festival: over four acres of permanent structures including a complete castle and fort, a children’s dell, bars, food venues, stages for all the various shows, and about 100 shops for craftsmen to sell everything from leather goods to battle axes to honey sticks. It has been operating for 30something years. It’s fancy. I was picturing a bunch of tents and booths with portable fairground food and chubby weirdos skipping around in corsets and tights. This was MUCH BIGGER, and oddly more real. These people went to the 9’s for this getup. There were about 1000 adults there (grown-ups, mind you) all dressed right to the hilt in these incredibly labor intensive costumes. Strange enough, I was expecting far more “tourists” like myself walking around and gawking at the freakshow. But there were a TON of people dressed to look the part. Maybe more than half. Now is time for a sip of beer. Try not to swallow funny when lord Grimmiere or something accosts you with a hand puppet of Queen Elizabeth and a 100% RIDICULOUS accent that he kept slipping in an out of. He’s serious when he says “good morrow!”, so you have to keep a straight face. Pbphhhhhhthh.

The shows were something in and of themselves. They pick the more convincing dorks to recruit viewers for Spanish dancers, comedy routines, sword fighting routines, sword fighting comedy routines, gypsy dancers, belly dancers, music…you get the drift. Poor Trotter (or Veronica, as he shall be referred to from now on) got dragged on stage by the popular Washing Well Wenches and had the dorks positively eating out of his hands. He was great. So between sips of beer and stifled laughs you meander over to ye olde giant turkey leg stand and have yourself a giant turkey leg (every bit as hilarious as it sounds. Delicious too!) and check out some of the wild life, maybe witness some horrible actors performing horrible comedy, or sword fighting, or sword fighting comedy or whatever that kid dressed in leather told us to watch. It’s damn hard for me to explain how real this all is. Then, when you’ve wiped the gristle from your chin and washed it all down with a few blessedly sedating meads, it’s time for the full-contact jousting.

Surprisingly, while it’s the biggest draw (where were all the bikers, Austin???) for the fair, the jousting was pretty lame, and very obvious about the staging. The knights were all in full mail (which was cool) but watching them take a foam-rubber staff to the chest going half-speed in front of some kind of princess in a tower (cause, you know, they had one built) could have been SO MUCH cooler than it actually was. Come on sir Auric, I want to hear some insults being tossed around! Gimme a little of thine medieval trash talking. Shut that swine-born strumpet up! Call him a lily-livered breath of dog! Call his mother a goat-mouthed whore! Don’t pick some little kid out of the audience to be your girlfriend (eew) and then proceed to get your ass fake-kicked in a poorly executed display of D-grade stunts. The jousting was kind of a bust.

And there was actually a queen, and a court, and witches and pirates, and an old white samurai, and barbarians and Mongols and shit. Okay. I am all for escapism. I like fiction and sweet action movies about dinosaurs and debating conspiracy theories and Jimmy Buffet and all that stuff, but this went a bit far. Why in the hell would you want to live in the middle ages anyway? there were no matches, mirrors, deodorant, Gameboy DS, helicopters, can coolers, weapons made out of bike chains, Crystal Pepsi, muscle cars, cutoff jeans, PEZ dispensers, temporary tattoos, record player/CD player combos, cheesy gordita crunches, snap bracelets, and Reebok Pump sneakers. They were savages. Sure, the kindly folk of medieval times lived in a land where magic was real and full of grandiose heroes and chivalry, mythical creatures roamed free and granted wishes to lonely travelers, virginity was still a virtue, and, oh yeah, more than 2/3rds of the population of England and eastern Europe was wiped out by the plague.

Alright. So I can’t completely wrap my mouth around the fair completely (yeah, I know…), I will say that we ended up having tons of fun. A pleasurable time was had by all, and while I’ll never go back, the company was top shelf and we ended up having a blast. Friends go see that shit, friends don’t allow each other to get involved (though they’ll probably send Mike an invitation by traveling minstrel, and the show shall forthwith be called the Washing Well Wenches and Veronica show). If you’re really into gross tits and primitive weapons, the Holly Renaissance Fair is for you. If you think the people who like gross tits and primitive weapons are funny, than the Holly Renaissance Fair is for you too. Just don’t laugh in their faces. And bring beer. Thank you, Austin, for making that day rule.